The field of the disclosure relates generally to measurement of objects, and more specifically, to a vision based location and measurement device and associated methods.
Device measurement methods have progressed over time. Originally, a manual measurement of a device would be utilized. An example of manual measurement is using a scale to measure the length of a part. A manual measurement method provides a measurement, but compared to other methods it is time consuming and can be inaccurate.
As technology progressed, other measurement devices, such as laser scanners, were developed. However, device measurements with a laser scanner generally require that tracking targets be applied to the target object. The various measurements to the tracking targets are utilized to determine a pose of the target object.
Laser scanner measurements with external tracking hardware are also known. Specifically, a laser scanner with external tracking hardware such as infrared cameras, photogrammetry cameras, or tracking lasers to determine are used to determine a pose of the target object.
An articulating arm measurement device is also known. The articulating arm measurement device is made up of several fixed length arms connected by rotating joints. The length of each arm is known and the angle between each arm is measured when the device is used to take a measurement of the object's surface. To take a measurement, a probe attached to the articulating arm is touched to the surface and the angle of each joint is used and the length of each arm is used to calculate the position of the probe.
Each of the above described device measurement methods is either time consuming or requires the utilization of additional hardware devices to make the distance measurements.